Deke [Slayton], I’ve spent a month now at flight school, have flown fifteen hours and soloed, and after much soul-searching, I have decided to resign… - Brian O'Leary

Between 2002 and 2006, I taught a course in the Masters program in Transformational Psychology at the University of Philosophical Research in Los Angeles. Part of the intent of the course was to embrace all four cultures of the Phoenix. The title of the course was Science, Ecology, Ethics and Consciousness. The attendance was low, but the students that did attend were among the most aware and sentient beings I have ever met. They began to understand how important all four cultures were for our future, and if we leave out any of these qualities and beliefs, or specialize too much in any one, we will box ourselves in.<p>[…] I believe that the world needs to come together in a blend from the four cultures of the Phoenix, but only the “Spiritualists” of consciousness scientists can provide lasting solutions. All other groups [Truth-Seekers, Deep Ecologists, and Pragmatists] simply do not have the awareness to get there, but they have an important role to play in presenting the depth of our problems.

In 1979 Jahn and I began to develop a new mutual interest, although we did not learn of our commonality until several years later. The subject was psychokenesis, and it was so far outside our left-brained aerospace view of reality that it would take several years before either of us felt comfortable speaking about it in public. We were “closet parapsychologists,” afraid to reveal ourselves to the skeptical frowns of our Princeton colleagues. Nevertheless we began, independently, to explore inner space; it was so intriguing and had such a siren’s call to our thirst for understanding that we simply had to heed it, even knowing that the world would look on in disbelief if it were disclosed.

We must now rewrite the laws of physics so that the results of such experiments are no longer anomalous. In doing so, we must never forget that the “laws” we write are simply reflections of our own current understanding of reality. They must never be confused with reality itself, which is always greater than the words and concepts we use in our attempts to manage it.